La cocaina
by alina.su
Summary: After Xanxus messes up in Mukuro's territoty, the illusionist decides to settle the matter in person.


_La cocaina no es buena para su salud_

'It is foul of you,' says Mukuro, 'to rip off the poor.'

Sickly pale night crept close and hungrily devoured the last blinded streetlight. Xanxus froze abruptly in the distorted reflection on the windshield.

'Is it you who claims to be poor?'

'Xanxus,' Mukuro folds his arms one on another and puts them on the roof of the car, smiling, 'I'm poor as a church mouse. Skilful, hard-working and, this you can't deny, a very attractive church mouse.'

Xanxus grins and recalculates in his mind money and its mental equivalent, and back again, as to how much it costs Mukuro to remain psychologically stable (as opposed to his usual state, of course) after Varia has cleaned up his filthy den. Having thought it through, he nods to Mukuro to hop in. Xanxus positively can honour him that much.

'Look here,' Xanxus points at the glimmering digits on his dash. 'I've got time for a chit-chat up until midnight. Then you go to the devil.'

'Will I terribly disappoint you by saying that since a certain time ago he visits me himself?' The clock goes off compliantly. 'That better?'

Mukuro flashed his bare teeth, sort of saying: prepare yourself, I've no idea myself, but it's going to be a hell of a long night.

It was either the howling night air from the scarcely open window, or the thing itself – cool on the neck, electric down the spine, sparkles in the eyes; just a fraction of a second, and as if nothing happened at all.

Xanxus exhales.

They're slipping inside the night's empty mouth, in the thick slushy darkness it's only the pale hands that's left of Mukuro. They use a foreign-scripted tone to tell Xanxus:

'Devil's with them money. Forget my business and my perfectly rotten reputation. But people? Do you realise what have you deprived them of? A single cheap assignment, and look how many consequences…'

'You know you're just going to cheer me up by saying that, scum?' Xanxus wants to smile wryly, but ends up with a dry cramp going through the left part of his face instead.

Yet the assignment was a cheap one indeed, and dirty. Xanxus was nearly regretting the fact he accepted it, but then imagined who'll be the first ones to be found decomposed in Mukuro's nest of vipers, when the time comes. Fran was appointed to manage the operation that night, whereas Xanxus himself drank improperly little and ignored Squalo's remarks not even out of spite but sincerely.

Now, if Mukuro wishes to tell him personally how worthwhile the whole thing was, then Xanxus, let it go at that, will put up with it and tolerate the piece of shit a tiny bit longer before throwing him out of his car, all the better on the move.

'D'you know why they call me an illusionist?' Mukuro asks gushingly, in an ugly manner.

Yellow headlights crumble the night apart. Xanxus lets out a barking laugh, tries to look at Mukuro, but the same moment traffic lights throw themselves under the wheels. Drunken tricolour's trembling and dripping down on the pavement.

'What am I to tell them when they look at me with their dilated pupils, as if one's soul wants to get out of one's lousy body right there and then?' Mukuro's face is hovering before him, his grotesque concern smudged with a sick mockery. 'Have you even been looked at like this?'

'Happened to,' Xanxus turns to the right sharply, edging the river bank, but somehow his skin gets scalded with water splashes anyway, as his breathing gets heavy.

'When you have kids,' Mukuro whispers into his ear, 'they'll go running to me. Children of your kind have the only way of redeeming themselves. You just won't acknowledge what will have left of them.'

The voice goes on rustling forever, breaking loose into colourful laughter, but Xanxus has long since stopped understanding, trying only to keep his eyes open. Mukuro turns to the window.

'Name your client,' he says, being calm again. Reality leaps back into the usual dimension, the voices grow silent.

Xanxus swears huskily – in the sign of protest, apparently. His fingers turned white on the steering wheel, and nearly ache from the tension.

'Knew that,' Mukuro stretches with pleasure and limbers up his fingers. 'Then let us just drive around for a little while. I'll bloody regret it, but not on your account, dissuade yourself. My idle self-destruction only.'

Xanxus hardly remembers the last hour, and how the sweet smell inside of his car got replaced by the suffocating wind, then back again, and what was Mukuro's excuse for taking the driver's seat, while he found himself by his side, not belted up and not angry whatsoever, although he should have been both.

'I often feel as though I lack some luxury,' Mukuro tilts back his head letting the red lights from outside cut the curve of his throat.

Xanxus isn't led by it, but is faintly reminiscent of the first time he was, however, frankly without any remorse. With such a trash as Mukuro was one can be and do whatever, and nobody will know – he lies too much and too enthusiastically, one way or the other.

Having guessed his thoughts, through the anxious gleam of hasty city lights Mukuro shows him something that makes his many-coloured physical and mental weakness embrace a new quality, slightly more aggressive. But after the cold touch draws him back above the surface, Xanxus would never be able to reproduce anything definite in his mind. Xanxus can't get his head around it, but, it seems, the long fingers covered with scars are on the verge of breaking in his own hands. That means nobody's holding the steering wheel.

"Pay attention". Xanxus sees a skyscraper throwing itself upon them, and he wants to laugh. However close Mukuro could be physically, it is a mere breeze comparing to how tightly he felt every emotional impulse of his right now.

A reflection of sleek black car is racing towards them. Xanxus struggles for breath, and the glass breaks with a burst of splinters, just like they do, it seems. Then the other way around; mere circles upon the water.

Mukuro stands motionless, having folded his arms on top of the car, and stares, measuring. Xanxus' reflection on the car's surface shifts by an inch.

'Give it to me, would you?' Mukuro slides his finger on the black glassy surface. 'Not asking for myself, I just know somebody who would appreciate a present like this.'

Xanxus smells catastrophe.

'Would you?' insists Mukuro, squinting slyly. 'Because I seem to have forgotten what I was meant to talk to you about in the first place, anyway.'


End file.
